Michael Swickard's new novel about New Mexico

New Mexico Business Weekly - The New Mexico State Land Office earned $9 million at its June 19 oil and gas lease sale in Santa Fe. The lease sales provide revenue from oil and natural gas produced on state trust land for trust beneficiaries. Twenty-five tracts of land were offered to the highest bidder. The offered tracts covered almost 10,000 acres of trust land and all were sold. An additional sale included tracts that are geographically located in areas where there is not yet commercial production and oil and gas reserves are unknown. That sale brought in $75,000 for 17 tracts. “This revenue provides financial support to our public schools, universities and hospitals, saving taxpayers from additional taxes to support these important institutions,” State Land CommissionerRay Powellsaid in a news release. The next oil and gas lease sale is July 17. Oil and gas lease sales are regularly scheduled on the third Tuesday of each month. Read More News New Mexico

Farmington Daily Times - Con men have had an easy time claiming that any old pepper was a New Mexico chile. Now the state’s iconic agricultural product will be more on par with Washington apples and Idaho potatoes. Pass off impostor products as those specialty foods and you are guilty of trademark infringement. New Mexico legislators did not obtain a trademark for homegrown chile, but they approved a protective law that will be enforced starting Sunday. The New Mexico Chile Advertising Act makes it unlawful for vendors to label fresh or processed chile as being from New Mexico unless it was actually grown in the state. Vendors subject to the new law include groceries, restaurants, convenience stores, farmers’ markets and roadside vegetable stands. State Rep. Andy Nunez, an independent from the chile capital of Hatch, sponsored the law. It was approved by Legislature and signed by Gov. Susana Martinez in 2011. Nunez said he wanted to end persistent deceptions occurring across the state. Chile from Peru, India, China and Mexico was being imported to New Mexico, then falsely billed on labels or menus as the home-state product. “New Mexico chile is the best. We have to do our best to protect it,” Nunez said. Eight inspectors in the Standards and Consumer Division of the the state Department of Agriculture will have the job of rooting out chile impostors in New Mexico. Read More News New Mexico

Wall Street Journal - The U.S. Supreme Court declined to reconsider its 2010 Citizens United ruling lifting restrictions on corporate and union political contributions, summarily overturning the Montana Supreme Court in a case involving a Montana state law limiting corporate political spending. In an unsigned decision, the court said "there can be no serious doubt" that the holding in Citizens United v. FEC applies to the Montana state law. "Montana's arguments in support" of the state court ruling "either were already rejected in Citizens United, or fail to meaningfully distinguish that case," the decision said. Four liberal justices dissented from the decision. Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the dissenters, said he would have preferred to reconsider Citizens United or at least its application to the Montana case. He said Montana's experience "casts grave doubt on the Court's supposition that independent expenditures" by corporations and unions "do not corrupt or appear to do so." The majority turned away pleas from the court's liberal justices to give a full hearing to the case because massive campaign spending since the January 2010 ruling has called into question some of its underpinnings. Read More News New Mexico

KOB - Gov. Susana Martinez is slated to address leaders of the state's colleges and universities just days after a new report said New Mexico colleges were some of the most underperforming nationwide. Martinez is scheduled Monday to speak at the Central New Mexico Community College-Workforce Training Center, and is expected to urge regents and administrators to develop a new plan aimed at fixing state colleges. Competitive Workforce, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce affiliate, named the state's two-year and four-year public institutions among the worst. According to the national study, the state's 19 community colleges and six public universities received D and F grades for student access and academic performance. The study found that 70 percent of New Mexico college students receive federal aid but only 40 percent of them graduate. Read More News New Mexico

KRQE - New Mexican’s had their own opinions about the Supreme Court ruling that rejected key parts of Arizona’s controversial immigration law, but how will it affect the state and our policies. Law makers and enforcement agencies are keeping a close eye on Arizona to see if ruling will have any impact here. The New Mexico’s American Civil Liberties Union says the decision is both a victory and a loss. Representatives with New Mexico’s ACLU say the ruling clearly states that immigration laws need to stay in the hands of the federal government. That is something that state and local law enforcement agencies are sticking with.They currently meet federal standards and only check immigration statuses once a person is booked into jail. The New Mexico ACLU is concerned though that the ruling will lead to racial profiling because they did not take out the show me your papers provision of the law and officers are still allowed to ask a person their status. Read More News New Mexico